The Serpent's Dominion

Mu-saeng and Wahsh had ironed out the details of their operation during the drive over, meaning the moment they crossed into the 22nd Dungeon, there was no hesitation in their stride.

"Wahsh. Teleport first."

Fzzzzzh!

A blinding flash engulfed him, and before the light had even faded, Mu-saeng's boots were firmly planted in a designated safe zone three kilometers away from the dungeon entrance. Instantly, a massive holographic map unfurled in midair before his eyes. Watching the clusters of light multiplying near the gateway, Mu-saeng calmly unfastened the straps of his duffel bag.

"How is it looking? How high can you stably push the snake respawn rate? Earlier you only promised a baseline of five hundred percent."

[Hmph. At this density, nine hundred percent won't be an issue in the slightest.]

Kkwak! At Wahsh's nasal squawk, the corners of Mu-saeng's mouth curled into an icy smirk. The One Way Group strike team would come thoroughly prepared for monsters; standard beasts wouldn't catch veteran climbers off guard. To dismantle them cleanly, he had to strike where they were blind.

"Nice. Set it up just like that."

Snakes. To ordinary civilians, a venomous snake was a lethal threat, but to Awakened climbers, they were little more than bothersome gnats. That exact complacency was the opening he intended to tear wide open. Modifying existing fauna placed far less strain on Wahsh than materializing full-fledged dungeon monsters—and if those pests began respawning ten times faster than normal?

Mu-saeng reached deep into his pack and withdrew a thick, coiled cord that resembled a braided crimson rope.

An S-rank artifact forged from the flesh of a floor boss, granting absolute dominion over every serpent in existence.

"They move fast. Already fanning out across the grid? I'll give One Way credit where it's due; their field units aren't completely incompetent."

[Kkyakyakyakyat! ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠What a shame I cannot watch their pathetic faces from up close!]

"Yeah, on that, we agree."

By puppeteering the snakes, he would puppeteer his hunters. It was a strategy made possible precisely because serpents were creatures most climbers dismissed as harmless background noise.

Chaaaaaa—!

Mu-saeng channeled his mana into the artifact. An imperceptible tremor, woven from the user's intent, rippled through the humid atmosphere and swept across the entirety of the 22nd Dungeon. Beneath the damp foliage, the jungle floor began to heave.

Sraken, the master ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of the 66th floor, had controlled his brood through raw mental projection alone. The artifact functioned on that same principle: the instant Mu-saeng formed a thought, the serpents executed it without needing direct manual guidance.

This is way smoother than I expected. An S-rank artifact really does live up to its name...

It was the first time in his twenty-nine years of life that he had wielded such high-tier equipment. But his arsenal didn't end there. Drawing a vial of concentrated venom extracted from Sraken's Poison Fang, Mu-saeng whispered his skill name.

Solitary Confinement.

Isolate only the neurotoxin. Maximize the onset speed.

With a mere command, the necrotic cellular rot and lethal blood-clotting agents were filtered out, leaving behind a pure, ultra-concentrated paralytic agent. He could fine-tune its potency at will—dialing it down to mild drowsiness or cranking it up to instant, full-body motor shutdown. Staring at the altered venom, Mu-saeng let out a dry, incredulous chuckle.

"Man, seriously... This is how the other half lives, huh? People climb the Tower and cruise through dungeons with absurd artifacts and skills, while I spent over a decade breaking my damn back."

Thirteen years as an Awakened dungeon sherpa without a single offensive skill or a decent piece of gear to his name. Compared to the days when he had to gamble his life on muscle memory and sheer grit, this kind of cheat-tier convenience felt almost insulting. Considering everything he had lost while shackled to the inactive Transmit(X), a little bitterness was only natural.

[What? You whining about something?]

"No, of course not. Wahsh, apply this exact poison profile to every snake native to the 22nd Dungeon."

Transmit(O).

Seeing the reality-bending authority of the duck floating beside him, whatever lingering resentment Mu-saeng harbored vanished like smoke.

"Alright, next on the list... Hm? Looks like a straggler just entered. Section Chief Park, tsk tsk. You really need to teach your subordinates some punctuality."

On the projected map, a lone point of light had flickered into existence right near the entrance portal. It was mere seconds before the twenty-minute cutoff window expired. To Mu-saeng, however, a single extra body changed nothing. One more pursuer simply meant one more target to cross off.

"Wahsh, jam all local frequencies and lock down the exit gate."

[...Done. Escape scrolls, physical gates, dimensional tears—nothing leaves this sector without my sign-off.]

Nineteen minutes after Mu-saeng stepped into the 22nd Dungeon, the escape scrolls carried by every hunter inside turned into useless scraps of parchment.

"Heheh. Time to get to work."

Forty-three minutes later, the first wave of serpents struck.

Screeech—!

Tires screamed as Geum Soo-ah slammed on the brakes, abandoning her vehicle before it had even fully halted. The urgent alert from her hotel concierge had propelled her across the city, but she knew her window was dangerously narrow.

Walking into a dungeon on his own two feet?! Has he completely lost his mind?!

She had reviewed the list of provisions he requisitioned from the concierge desk. At the time, she assumed it was routine maintenance gear to prepare for his next Tower climb. Never in her wildest dreams did she expect him to plunge directly into an open dungeon—especially with an elite One Way Group kill team breathing down his neck.

"Wait, Geumseong?!"

"Hey! You can't go in there—"

The One Way perimeter guards stationed outside the gateway flinched upon recognizing her, but before they could form a defensive line, Soo-ah cut them off with a frigid glare.

"Restricting public access to dungeons below the 30th floor is an explicit violation of the Nevada Treaty. Obstruct me, and I will have legal sanctions filed against your guild within the hour."

Neither international law nor raw combat capability gave them any leverage to stop her.

"Kuh... No, wait, ma'am, just hold on a second—"

Ignoring their frantic protests, Geum Soo-ah threw herself ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠straight through the swirling dimensional rift. The familiar viscous drag of spatial transition gripped her for a fraction of a second before her boots touched down upon the damp, rotting loam of the jungle floor.

Refraction. Dispersion. Reflection.

Shwaaa—!

Her silhouette vanished entirely into thin air. Her innate SR-rank ability, Luminous, granted her total authority over the spectrum of light. In under a second, she manipulated the light waves cascading across her body, bending and scattering them to achieve flawless optical camouflage. Yet despite her stealth, she remained wound tight as a spring. It was only after surveying the immediate perimeter that she finally exhaled.

...Faint traces of broken brush heading into the canopy. Thank god. I made it before the twenty-minute instance lock.

She was in the exact same dungeon instance as Kim Mu-saeng and One Way Group. That meant she could still intervene. Before One Way's enforcers could butcher him, she could step in and pull him out. It didn't matter how many operatives they had deployed or if they were the guild's foremost elites; she had the firepower to suppress them all.

The problem is his location... The tracks split off in multiple directions. Which path did he take?

Soo-ah hesitated. Standard raid protocol dictated that field teams maintain constant radio contact within dungeon sectors. If she could stalk and incapacitate just one operative, she could extract their operational frequency and pinpoint Mu-saeng's coordinates.

If I were certain they wouldn't kill him on sight, waiting at the gate might be the safer bet... But with the hounds Lee Eunwoo employs, there's no telling how far they'll go.

Camping the exit was too passive. If One Way's goons secured the antidote, they might execute Mu-saeng out of spite right on the spot. Settling her resolve, Soo-ah locked onto the trail with the heaviest foot traffic and surged forward.

Rustle, rustle, rustle...

Swift yet soundless, her eyes darted between crushed vines and disturbed mud. Her vision strained against the oppressive green canopy.

Ugh, my eyes are burning. Tracking really is my worst subject...

In direct combat, she feared no one. But pathfinding through wilderness was another story entirely. Following hours-old footprints across a sprawling jungle was an exercise in pure frustration. Yet as she pressed on, an insightful thought crossed her mind.

His thirteen years as a sherpa weren't just wasted time. He deliberately lured them into the terrain where he holds the absolute advantage.

Even among experienced climbers who had cleared the 22nd floor of the Tower, most had only traversed this biome once or twice during their ascent. None of them possessed an intimate familiarity with jungle survival. Was Mu-saeng drawing them into the swamp to isolate and pick them off one by one?

Even so, against an organized corporate team...

Ambushes and guerrilla tactics could only accomplish so much. One Way Group was an established powerhouse; their strike teams were heavily funded. They would undoubtedly carry high-grade defensive items like Ranged Attack Nullification Scrolls as standard issue. What could Mu-saeng do? Close the distance with a dagger? Even a single mid-tier vanguard in that squad possessed enough raw defensive stats to shatter Mu-saeng's blade on impact.

Which meant there was only one logical explanation for his confidence.

Artifacts. It has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to be. He secured at least two high-grade items from the 66th Dungeon.

Her hypothesis hardened into conviction moments later when she finally caught up to a One Way detachment.

"They're still following us!"

"Damn it, our antivenom supplies are running low... Try reaching Section Chief Park! Ask for revised orders!"

"I-it's no use! The comms are completely dead!"

"What?!"

Hovering unseen among the high branches, Soo-ah observed the commotion below. Snake manipulation—was that the power of his artifact?

A mass beast-taming tool could certainly sow chaos, but to actually overpower a One Way squad—wait, what is that?!

Ssssshhhhh—!

A sudden, icy terror gripped Soo-ah's spine, raising every hair on her body. Had she not been an elite climber disciplined in high-stakes combat, she would have broken her stealth with a bloodcurdling scream.

Rustle! Swish-swish-swish!

Wh-what... What is all of this?!

The ground was moving. Around her, beneath her, weaving between the roots and dropping from the canopy was an uncountable, writhing ocean of serpents. Thousands? Tens of thousands? The jungle floor had turned into an undulating carpet of scales and fangs.

"There's too many of them! No matter how many we crush, they just keep coming!"

"Fuck this! Abort the mission! Tear your escape scrolls!"

"S-Squad Leader, the scroll isn't activating!"

"Gurgle... Gurk!"

"What's happening?! Why did he collapse—"

"The v-venom... The antivenom isn't doing anything! One scratch and you're fin—ack!"

Soo-ah looked on in absolute disbelief. What kind of venom was that? These weren't dungeon-born monsters; they were ordinary, mundane serpents native to the habitat! How could baseline creatures possess toxins that instantly dissolved an Awakened hunter's natural resistance?

Did he modify the venom's potency?! No, that's impossible. Even an artifact from a 66th-floor boss couldn't rewrite the biological parameters of living creatures on this scale!

Yet reality unfolded brutally before her eyes. The venom coursing through those fangs hit harder than the toxins found in the Floor 44 boss chamber. One by one, One Way operatives stiffened like petrified wood, crashing face-first into the mud with dull thuds. The symptoms were unmistakable: total, instantaneous motor paralysis, identical to the fate that had befallen Geumseong's own fallen team members under Sraken's wrath.

And the sheer volume of them... What is wrong with the respawn rate?!

Even as the hunters unleashed wide-area fire spells, frost novas, and lightning arcs to incinerate the swarms, the carpet of scales replenished itself almost instantaneously. It defied the fundamental laws of dungeon ecosystems. An artifact couldn't manipulate the dungeon's internal spawn engine... could it?

Worse, their escape scrolls were completely dead. Defective batches? Impossible. A corporate powerhouse like One Way Group would never issue subpar emergency gear to a specialized combat squad.

Something is terrifyingly wrong here. This isn't just an ambush... Something unnatural is taking place.

Right then and there, Geum Soo-ah made her call: retreat. She had confirmed that Kim Mu-saeng possessed artifacts from the 66th floor. Deciphering how he was producing these impossible phenomena could wait. Her immediate priority was escaping a sector that had turned into an incomprehensible death trap.

Swish, swish, swish!

Whether her footfalls rustled the leaves no longer mattered. She sprinted toward the entrance gate at maximum speed, desperate to reach the threshold—only to skid to an abrupt halt just yards from safety.

...Gasp!

Instinctively dropping into a crouch behind a broad fern, she clamped both hands over her mouth, suffocating her own breath. The scene before her was beyond bizarre.

Dozens of men in black suits lay stretched out in neat, orderly rows across the jungle clearing. And suspended above every single unconscious head was a crude, jury-rigged contraption.

Drip. Drip. Drip...

Small, translucent droplets fell at methodical, calibrated intervals directly into their parted lips.

An IV drip? Makeshift intravenous setups?

The materials varied wildly; most appeared to be fashioned from the operatives' own sliced-open military canteens, retrofitted with thin plastic tubes to regulate the flow. For medical recovery? To nurse them back to health?

None of that mattered compared to the identity of the man casually adjusting the valves.

"Aigoo, my back is killing me."

It was Kim Mu-saeng.

Soo-ah swallowed dryly, terrified that the mere click in her throat might betray her position. Throughout her career, from surviving the brutal trials of the 66th floor to ascending as the Vice Head of Geumseong's Raid Division, she had witnessed gruesome battles and grotesque monsters. Yet nothing she had ever encountered radiated the quiet, spine-chilling horror of the tableau before her.

And when Mu-saeng's muttered complaint reached her ears, the true purpose of the contraptions slammed into her like a physical blow.

"They won't drop dead, will they? It'd be a real headache if I accidentally overdosed them."

He's... he's administering continuous doses to maintain their paralysis?!

Medical treatment? Compassion? Not in the slightest.

Wait, how did he even manage this?! The team I was just tracking is already lying here! How did he subdue them, haul them back, and build all of this faster than I could run straight to the exit?!

Her mind reeled under an avalanche of unanswerable questions. Yet one undeniable fact stood stark against the madness: whether she understood his methods or not, twenty-seven seasoned combatants had been completely neutralized without a single fatality, gathered in one place, and placed under perpetual chemical confinement.

Kim Mu-saeng had conceived this entire nightmare, planned every contingency, and executed it flawlessly down to the last drop of venom.

Who... what on earth is this man?

Was this truly the same slacker who had been yawning lazily and slurping iced coffee in the hotel lounge just hours ago?

Rustle...

A sudden disturbance in the brush snapped Soo-ah out of her daze.

"Haa... Haa... Haa... Was this... did you do all of this, you bastard?!"

Stumbling into the clearing was Park Dohyun. His formal suit was shredded to ribbons, spattered with muck and blood, and across his broad shoulders, he hauled three stiffened, paralyzed subordinates. He dumped them unceremoniously onto the grass and glared murderously at Mu-saeng.

Mu-saeng looked up, maintaining an innocent expression.

"Nope."

"Don't give me that bullshit!" Park Dohyun roared.

Mu-saeng casually shrugged his shoulders.

"Huh? Why bother asking if you were just going to call me a liar anyway? Of course I did it. Who else would have? Heheh."

"You absolute son of a bitch!"

Veins bulged along Park Dohyun's thighs as raw mana flooded his lower body. Watching from the shadows, Soo-ah's gaze sharpened. Park Dohyun was a veteran of the 37th floor; in an explosive, close-quarters charge, the physical disparity should heavily favor One Way—

No matter what tricks he pulled, in a direct one-on-one, One Way has the advantage... right?

Yet as the distance between them evaporated in an instant, Kim Mu-saeng simply stood his ground, a cold, mocking grin spreading across his face.